


Ghosts and Stone

by EclipseWing



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Don't Blink, Gen, Ghosts, I'm afraid the doc and clara don't have as much input as I'd like, post-nogitsune affects on stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-21 02:05:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3673458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EclipseWing/pseuds/EclipseWing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s gone. Vanished without a trace.<br/>The only thing left is his jeep, parked on the side of the road with the keys still in the ignition and his phone on the ground.<br/>The last picture taken is of an innocuous stone angel, half hidden in the woods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts and Stone

"Missing people," his dad drops the file in front of him. "Gone without a trace. I've looked down every avenue I know, but I think it's time I handed it over to you guys."

Stiles has a stupid smug grin on his face as he waves his phone in front of his dad, "Already one step ahead of you there, daddy-o."

 

The church is old, something the settlers built. It's been left to fall into ruin, half in the forest, half on the abandoned road that leads to town.

"I don't like it." Malia's hackles are raised as she stares around the stone ruins. Besides her the other pack members all tread carefully, Kira and Liam gazing around the graveyard with awe.

"Hey!" Liam calls, "There are Hales, buried here."

"Makes sense," Stiles shrugs, "They've been in Beacon Hills for years," his emphasis of the last word is not needed, but it puts it into perspective for the newer members of the pack. Next to him, Lydia is rubbing at her arms. She's got goosebumps, and keeps shivering.

"I don't like it," the banshee admits, "Are you sure this is the right place?"

Stiles goes through his mental list. Five missing persons, all within the last month. Two of them vanished along the road after a wrong turn. Another two were hikers walking through the woods, while the last was someone interested in old buildings who visited the old church specifically. That was their best lead, and they've since been able to draw a circle around the church with all the people who have gone missing being within a half mile radius from the place.

The place makes Scott uneasy.

"I don't see anything," Liam kicks leaves over as he trudges back towards them, "Just a whole load of gravestones."

Scott sighs, hands in his pockets. He thinks they're right, and even Stiles and Lydia are beginning to look downcast that their theory is falling through, "I can't smell anything," he admits, "There's nothing here."

The sun peaks the top of the church and he blinks it out of his eyes, shifting into the shade. There's a dark shadow on top of the church, but it's nothing of interest. Just a stone shape, resting on the ruins.

"Come on," he tells them, gesturing to where they parked the cars, "We'll go ask around town again, check out that supernatural bar we found…"

They leave. Stone eyes watch them go.

 

Danny frequents the bar they check out. Scott suspects, though he doesn't know for sure, that may be how their acquaintance found out about everything (Danny doesn't let them call themselves his friends after they almost got arrested the fourth time). "Are you okay?" he asks, seeing them trooping in. "You're early. This place doesn't open for another half an hour?"

"That's the time?" Stiles makes clumsy movements towards his phone, "Aw crap, I promised my dad I'd be home…" he looks up, and Scott nods before his friend even has to ask. With a grateful grin Stiles darts for the door, keys already jangling in his hands.

"He's in a rush," Liam steps aside to avoid being bowled over.

Malia snorts, "Have you met Stiles? That's nothing new?"

"So what are you looking for?" Danny turns to Scott as Lydia and Kira stalk off to poke around the back. Danny watches them go with a suspicious look, "There's nothing back there!" he calls, but the pair either ignore him or don't hear.

"It's okay," Scott reassures him, but Danny just looks more worried.

"This is Beacon Hills. What's going on?"

"Missing people!" Malia announces. Subtlety has never been her strong point, "Five. We wanted to check this place out to see if there were any new creatures frequenting the area."

Danny crosses his arms, "Well there aren't," he sounds defensive, then sighs, "Okay, there are a few vampires…" he waits ten seconds for the shocked gasps of 'vampires? those exist?' before continuing, "but they're okay."

"Are they vegetarians?" Scott narrows his eyes, "Like those ones off Twilight that only drink animal blood?"

"You've seen Twilight?" Liam blinks at Scott as if he's ruining the kid's dream.

"Stiles made me read it. Shut up."

"No, they use blood banks," Danny shrugs, "They need human blood to supplement the loss of their own, and they need the specific blood type that is compatible with their own. I don't really ask." He adds the last to try and appease their shocked and disgusted faces… well… Scott and Liam look disgusted, Malia looks like she's considering the taste.

A crowd drifts in, and somewhere the music starts. Danny grins, "Looks like this place is opening. You gonna hang around?"

Kira appears, "Didn't find anything," she tells Scott over the music, "Lydia says it all feels fine. Do you want to stay for the evening… see if anything amiss turns up?" a shy grin alights onto her face, "Maybe have a dance or two?"

"Ugh," Liam rolls his eyes. Scott doesn’t know why, honestly, it's not as if he and Kira were kissing. Danny has spotted someone he knows and darted away, and Kira's still looking at him with that shy, nervous smile that he finds so adorable. "Hey!" Liam protests behind him.

Scott looks up to see Stiles almost tripping into the young beta. His friend blinks, a wide grin spreads over his face at the sight of them, "Hi," Stiles lets out a weak laugh, and then his gaze rests on Scott with an urgency that Scott can't place.

"Are you okay?" Scott frowns, "I thought you were going home? And when did you change your shirt?"

Maybe he's imagining it, but under the dark jacket the plaid checks have changed from green and blue to red and a funny shade of purple. Stiles splutters for a moment to answer, then grins and with a laugh shakes his head, "I am. Heading home I mean," he smirks like there is a joke the others aren't getting, "Just found this," he passes Scott a piece of paper with a phone number on it, "Deaton recommended someone to call, and I totally forgot to tell you earlier," he says with an easy shrug, taking a step backwards, "Anyway, I gotta run. Just… don't blink, okay?"

"Don't what?" Liam is staring at Stiles with more puzzlement that he usually does.

"Don't blink," Stiles repeats, and that urgency is back, behind those words, but then it’s gone. With a smile he adds, "You know what they say about how you can blink and miss it. Well…" he steps back, turning to go, "Give the number a call. It might help."

"Was that Stiles?" Lydia arrives back just as Scott's best friend vanishes in the crowd.

"Yeah," Liam stares, "Was it just me or was he weirder than usual?"

"Hey!" Malia is indignant for Stiles' benefit, "I'm going to go see he's okay," she says, sounding worried, "He smelt weird."

Scott hadn't smelt anything unusual, but then Scott hasn't spent years living in the woods. "I'll go with you," Lydia says, "There was something I wanted to ask him - trust him to run off before I can."

"So?" Kira looks expectantly at Scott as Malia and Lydia disappear towards the door, "Are you going to call up this supernatural consultant?" she looks eager, but Scott shakes his head.

"Not yet," he says, pocketing the number, "We'll give it a little bit longer. See if we can piece anything together first."

 

They don't get the chance.

They're still scoping out the club an hour later when there is a call from Lydia. Scott can hear Malia hovering in the background.

"It's Stiles. He's gone."

 

There's nothing that should give them any clue their friend is even gone, except the fact his phone is on the ground.

"He wasn't at home," Lydia tells them, numbly, "And his jeep was parked on the side of the road. He'd stopped… I don't know why…"

They're on the outskirts of the town, the road travelling up, and the woods are further north than the other disappearances but otherwise it's the same. A missing person with no scent trail and no person.

"We tracked his phone," Malia sniffs, holding the device. The screen is cracked, but it still turns on, "Lydia has this GVS thing…"

"GPS," Lydia corrects her, taking the phone and thumbing through several apps, "He was using the camera," she says, "he took a picture of a piece of woodland, and then there's another… huh… that's odd."

"What is?" Scott frowns.

"Stiles took a picture of a stone angel someone had put in the woods," she shows them the picture, then scrolls to one side, "then he took another picture, but this time the angel is gone. Why the hell would Stiles take two pictures from exactly the same place, but bother to take the time to drag that lump of stone out of the shot?"

Kira looks towards Scott and he knows what she's going to say, "I think it's time you called that number now."

 

"I told you, I don't know who this is - this phone never rings. Ever. I don't know anybody who has that number and… oh, sorry there, can I help you?"

"Uh, yeah - a friend gave us this number. He said you were a supernatural consultant?"

There is a pause in which a significant look is shared between two people, "Of a sorts, I guess you can call me that."

"Oh, uh, great, see we needs some help with a missing persons case?"

"Don't you want the police for that?"

"There have been five disappearances. They just vanish, no sign of them even weeks later."

"You sound awfully young to be investigating th--"

"Our friend is gone. We found his car and his phone but he's gone, and he said you would help."

There is another pause.

"Give us ten minutes."

"Ten minutes? Uh, great, are you in the area? We're in--"

 

Scott stares in puzzlement at his cell phone, "They hung up," he said, slightly dismayed, "I couldn't even tell the guy where we were."

And Stiles is still gone. There's a hollow ache in his chest.

"Someone's going to have to tell his dad," is the only thing he can think of, "someone's going to have to tell the Sheriff…"

One of the pack opens their mouth to say something. Scott can't tell who, but he hears the intake of breath, seconds before there is a wheezing groan that fills the air.

His first instinct is to check Stiles' jeep isn't going to blow up. It's been making suspicious noises ever since it broke down in Mexico. But the jeep is stationary, keys in Scott's pocket, door closed.

Malia snarls at something, and he turns, just in time to see a blue box appear out of nowhere a couple of metres down the verge.

"Oh no," Lydia doesn't sound impressed, "What now?"

"That was so cool," Liam whistles, "Why don't we have something like that?"

It's some sort of call box, except it's wooden, painted a bright dark blue and has police box signs on it. There is a phone hanging outside the door. "It's from London," Lydia says, with a frown, "They used to use them before the war… what… how did that get here?"

There is a clunk from inside and the whole pack startle when the door opens and a man with floppy hair and a bow tie trips out, followed by a bright eyed young woman with dark hair.

"Woah!" the guy doesn't spot them, instead spinning around and taking in the sky and forest around them, "I'm guessing maybe middle ages." He sucks in a breath, "Wait - phones, they didn't have phones in the middle ages… but forests like this - France! We're in France! Probably sometime in the middle thirty-second century…"

"Uh, Doctor…" the young woman spots them. She waves, looking slightly embarrassed as the guy continues spinning around.

"Don't you just love that nice French air?" the man was saying with a grin.

"I'm going to go with California," the girl says, staring at Liam's sports hoodie, "Probably twenty-first century?"

"Twenty-twelve," Lydia confirms.

"Ah," the man spins around, blinking at them as he spots them for the first time, "I assume you're the ones who called?"

 

Stiles was driving home when it happened.

It was just a flash. Pale grey in the green-brown wood. He glanced to one side, spotting it again.

He brought his car to a halt, parking on the side of the road. Clambering out, he could see what had caught his attention.

There was a stone angel sitting in the woods. Stiles wondered who would go to the trouble of placing it there. It was pretty, soft grey stone and hands that cupped it's face, hiding it's expression. Wings curled over it's shoulders and a sweeping dress pooled around where it was crouched.

It was also familiar.

Stiles had seen this angel before.

Or at least, not in the same pose, but he definitely recalled seeing some of the same type of angels at the church from this morning.

Maybe there was a link. Maybe there wasn't.

He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture just to show the others later, just in case.

The camera shutter made a snapping noise and he looked up from the screen to the forest.

The angel was gone.

His thumb clenched his phone reflectively, and another picture snapped automatically. But it didn't change anything. The stone angel which had been there moments before was gone.

Maybe he was hallucinating, Stiles thought immediately, turning to scan the woodland and then freezing when his gaze caught sight of the angel. Maybe he'd just misplaced it…

But it was no longer crouching. And its head was angled up, as if it was looking towards him.

He'd found his monster, Stiles realised with a splash of inspiration. A moving stone - who would suspect that, right? He looked around for others, one hand pulling open his jeep door when he saw it.

"Stiles," Allison said, "Run."

He tore his gaze away from the dead girl just in time to see a snarling stone face and then nothing.

 

"Fascinating. You… your base form is actually human, but you're not human."

The man kept jumping around them with a green penlight, and he was seconds away from shining it into their eyes when Lydia snatched it off him. The guy looked indignant, but she held it out of reach when he tried to lunge for it, "No," she snapped, "You are going to tell us how you appeared from nowhere in a blue call box, and you are going to tell us what happened to our friend!"

"I'm Clara," the woman tells them, "Clara Oswald."

Scott diligently introduces his pack to them. The man holds out a hand, "Lovely to meet you, Scott McCall. I'm the Doctor!" his tone is one of perpetual brightness.

"Doctor of what?" Lydia's glare is fierce.

The man's shoulders slump, "That's not what people usually say," he sighs, "And it's just 'the Doctor."

"Okay 'the Doctor'," Scott's patience is growing thin as well, "Can you tell us anything useful?"

"Depends," the man sticks his hands in his pockets, suddenly serious, "What happened?"

They explain.

 

The Doctor is looking more and more grim by the second, and Scott knows that look. It's the same look his mother gets when she's lost patients and been the one to break the bad news to the family.

"I'm going to need to see this church," he says, then begins to walk down the road.

"There's a shortcut through here!" Malia calls after him. She knows the woods better than anyone. "But you haven't told us what happened to Stiles!"

He talks as they go. "That angel your friend took a picture of? It took him. Touched him. That's all it takes."

"What does it do?"

Later Scott wishes his friend were dead.

It sounds the better option, almost.

 

Lydia's crying.

At least, he thinks she is, but it's dark out and Scott can't see her face clearly in the shadows. They arrive back at the church and it looks even creepier in the moonlight.

"So if we see an angel, we don't blink?" Malia doesn't quite understand the mechanics of this monster yet, "Can't we smash them when they're still stone?"

"It doesn't work like that," the Doctor sniffs, and Malia has this look as if she's determined to prove him wrong. Scott has this sudden image of Malia with her fangs buried into the arm of a stone angel, and has to stifle the urge to laugh.

Now isn't the time. Stiles is gone, years in the past and even if they find him now…

He'd be old. Old if not dead. Scott wonders what Stiles did with his life, if he moved away, started a family, somewhere far away from Beacon Hills hopefully.

Lydia seems to be thinking along the same lines, "Knowing him, he'd be his own grandfather or something…"

"Well they do share the same name…"

"There!" Kira is the one to spot it in the dark, "On that headstone!"

"Great!" the Doctor says, "Now you and Liam watch it. Don't blink."

That's when the moon slides behind a cloud.

Scott blinks his eyes to alpha red, and he's aware they're a set of glowing red, amber, gold and blue. Malia startled backwards, "It's moved," she says, voice trembling, "I swear it was at least three headstones back…"

"Come on!" the Doctor says, and he's pulled out a flash light from somewhere, "This was a bad idea, I shouldn't have brought you here…"

"There's another!" Scott spots this one, and the stones statue is reaching out towards them.

"Into the church!" the Doctor declares, and they're all too freaked to argue.

 

"Will the doors hold?" Liam asks, worry in his tone.

There is a crash, and Lydia flinches back. "I don't think so. I don't... I don't know."

"Can't you use your ship?" Scott turns to the Doctor, "Can't you get us out of here? Can't you rescue Stiles and those other people from where they're trapped in time?"

The man looks grim, staring at where the door is shuddering under the impact of… something.

"I can't," he says, "Time is… it's hard to explain. It's lots and lots of loops and I can't… I can't cross them. And crossing with the angels is something I can't do. I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do for your friend."

"You mean Stiles is gone?" Malia's eyes flare blue and she's got fangs appearing. Clara looks alarmed, but the Doctor just looks curious.

"What's with the eye colours?" he asks, just as with a splintering sound, the doors crash open and the torch lights flicker out.

 

The lights flare on, and there are three stone statues reaching towards them with snarling faces.

"Oh god," Lydia steps behind Scott, gaze fixed on the stone angels, "Oh god…" she has her hands over her mouth as if she wants to scream, but her voice sounds weak as if she can't.

Liam is trying something with closing one eye, then closing the other. Kira has pulled out her katana, as if that might help her fight them off, "Can I electrocute them?" she asks.

"They're stone!" Lydia snaps, all frustration and fear, "You can't kill a stone!"

"I still say we break it…" Malia starts forwards with a snarl.

"No!" Scott reaches for her, just as their light source fades out again, and by the time he's blinked the red into his eyes, the angels are three feet closer. The one in the lead has it's fingers inches from Malia. Scott drags her backwards as the Doctor's torch lights up again.

"But why here?" the Doctor whispers to himself, "I thought the Weeping Angels were mostly gone, why do three of them turn up in a quiet town in the middle of France?"

"California!" Clara corrects him.

"Cali-- oh," the Doctor's gaze flickers across the stone angels, "What did you say this town was called?"

"Beacon Hills."

"It's the energy," the Doctor says, "the town's leylines…"

"We know about the telluric currents!" Lydia snaps, "It's why there is so much supernatural activity here."

"Not supernatural," the Doctor shakes his head, "All this is natural. Real. Realnatural. But it's ancient. It's ancient and it's earth magic. It's powerful, that's why they're here. Why they're feeding on it…" he turns away from the angels, "Feeding on you," he whispers, just as Clara's flashlight flickers out again.

 

There's a loud crack, and then a sharp snap, like a gun-shot, or whip.

 

Scott blinks, and it's Stiles. Stiles with a dark jacket and a red and funny purple plaid shirt and a metal baseball bat, grinning at him, looking exactly the same. The cracked remains of two of the stone angels lie at his feet.

"Stiles?" he asks.

"Behind you!" Lydia's eyes dart to one of the stone angels, just as with a low phut noise, the lights go out.

 

There is another sharp crack, and this time when Scott's eyes adjust to the dark, it's to see the last angel shatter into pieces as an arrow explodes in its chest.

One of the Argent's explosive arrows.

 

Allison lowers her bow, "So…" she glances at Stiles, "We should probably explain, shouldn't we?"

"That was awesome!" Stiles's grin is wide as he turns to her, "High five?" He turns with triumph to Allison, hand up.

She pouts at him, "Stiles, we've been through this…"

"Come on!" he gestures, and with a sigh Allison raises her hand, fingers splayed.

What happens next tells Scott all he needs to know.

Their hands don't touch. Stiles and Allison stop the movement as if they're both high-fiving mid-air, but they're so close their hands touch anyway…

Except they don't touch. Their fingers slip right through. Or rather, Allison's hand slips right through Stiles' warm and living flesh.

 

"Fascinating…" the Doctor keeps running his sonic screwdriver over Allison. She looks amused, but Lydia looks pissed, mostly because she has no idea how he got it back, "You're definitely you. Some sort of spiritual imprint of consciousness, but with an ability to manipulate matter…"

The words go over Scott's head, "You're alive."

"I'm a ghost," Allison corrects, hair cascading over her shoulders, and her form shimmers and fades suddenly. The Doctor looks alarmed, then curious as he examines his sonic device.

"She does that," Stiles comments, nonchalantly, just as Allison's shape slips back into view.

"Sorry," she apologises, "Oh, hi!" she says to the newcomers of the pack, "I'm Allison!"

"Liam," Liam says, warily, "You're a ghost?"

"Yup!"

"Okay," the kid nods, taking it all in his stride, "Cool!"

Malia sniffs, "You don't smell like anything. Is that because you're dead?"

"Malia!" Kira hisses, "You can't just ask ghosts about death like that!"

Lydia is looking at Allison with tears in her eyes. She looks like she wants to hug her friend, but knows she can't. Instead she turns to Stiles with a frown, "But you got touched. Back in the woods…"

"Touched by an angel," Stiles grimaces, "Isn't all it's been made out to be."

"But you... You're still…"

"I'm seventy-eight," Stiles grins, "And I look good, huh?"

"We think," Allison shimmers back into view, "We think it's because of the nogitsune. That's also why I got dragged back in time with Stiles. We uh… we had an interesting time living through the twentieth century."

"I saw you!" Scott points at Stiles, "Earlier. You gave me his number," he gestures to the Doctor.

Stiles shrugs, "We've met before," he glances at the Doctor, "Or later, in his case," he grins, "Time travel," he looks so happy. And Scott realises why. He'd barely had time to accept his friend was gone before he had him back again, but Stiles… Stiles has lived years without them. Stiles is older than him, older than Derek, older than Peter…

Stiles spent years living in a strangely familiar world, with nothing more than himself and a sometimes present ghost by his side.

"Hey," Stiles is in front of Scott suddenly, "It's okay! Really!" Malia's still permanently attached to Stiles' arm, and Lydia is whispering to Allison, and the Doctor is still scanning their ghost pack member and…

"Stop worrying!" Stiles says, "It's going to be okay!"

Scott grins back, "I missed you too."

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of many plot bunnies I started to write and lost interest in, so I kind of finished it. I never really go into detail, but I have a headcanon that the nogitsune changed Stiles from being just a plain old human. In this it's shown itself as the fact he doesn't age normally, and he may or may not be able to control electricity. Allison was also affected, but more from the sacrifice to the nemeton, tethering her to the world spiritually, if not physically. When Stiles got touched by the angel, Allison was hanging out with him, and so got pulled back in time along with him. I imagine the pair then had a fun time sixty years in the past, but I have no idea what they did. (Stiles may or may not have been the reason Cora escaped the fire to South America) (Allison may have spent years practicing how to shoot things and not just have her arrows fly straight through objects).


End file.
